On February 29, 2012, Fitzpatrick Mfg. Co. formed their first “Kaizen Team” with the assistance of Professor Mark Doman from Oakland University and his assistant Matt. Kaizen is a Japanese management term referring to continuous improvement. The goal of this method is to eliminate waste by allowing workers to uncover improvement opportunities and either suggest or make changes. Our company has taken the team approach to Kaizen and focused on one work process we feel needs improvement. Over the past seven weeks, approximately 20 of our employees have taken part in various activities such as going to the “Gemba,” creating a process map, and forming sub-committees to determine the counter measures that will be taken to eliminate waste and improve upon this particular work process. Thus far, our experience with Kaizen has been completely eye opening and taught us to really look at things in a much more “lean” manner. It has given our employees extensive problem solving tools and skills to make continuous improvement within our company. It has also given our employees a sense of empowerment, being able to be completely involved in the problem solving and changes implemented from beginning to end. All of this could not have been done without Professor Doman and Matt guiding us through this process, and for that we are very grateful. We believe this process has been very rewarding for our employees individually as well as for our company, and we plan on continuing to use the Kaizen method in the future.
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